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Stanley Ho is and has been Macau for more than 40 years; his
Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macao group's casinos, hotels,
retail stores, real estate and jetfoil operations account for
two-thirds of the former Portuguese colony's GDP.

The tall, saturnine Eurasian has likewise been one of the most
enigmatic and feared figures in the neighbouring former British
colony of Hong Kong, where matching operations (minus the gambling)
are mostly bundled into the listed Shun Tak group.

His activities - including the sprawling family spawned from his
four wives - are a continual focus of gossip and magazine
coverage.

But lately, the 82-year-old's empire seems to have entered a
twilight zone. Handed back to China in 1999, Macau decided to end
the gambling monopoly STDM subsidiary Sociedade de Jogos de Macao
had enjoyed since 1962. Two new entrants - Galaxy, owned by Hong
Kong's K.Wah construction group, and Las Vegas-based Wynn Resorts -
were given 20-year licences alongside Ho's outfit.

The first taste of competition came in May when Las Vegas Sands,
operating under a sub-concession from Galaxy, opened the $US240
million ($A310 million) Sands Macao casino.

Suddenly, the punters of South China, who were flocking on day
trips into Macau from Hong Kong or Guangdong's rich industrial
belt, had an alternative to the smoke-filled chambers of Ho's 12
casinos, packed with serial gamblers.

The Sands is just the forerunner of a host of new American-style
casino-resorts. Those to come include another, bigger Sands,
modelled on its Venetian-style resort in Las Vegas, and one owned
by MGM-Mirage, on a sub-concession from Ho himself.

In June, Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd's James Packer and
Crown casino chief Rowan Craigie were spotted in Macau on a recce
visit. While Galaxy and Wynns said they were not discussing
sub-concessions with PBL, Ho's office was evasive.

PBL's investment of $168 million in the Park Hyatt hotel and
casino, which is being developed by Ho's Melco International
Development, gives it only a 28 per cent share in the venture.
Under the deal, Ho will retain 60 per cent of all ventures in
China, which the now Beijing-attuned Ho would define as including
Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as the mainland.

Elsewhere in Asia - Singapore is another small enclave looking
at gambling as a new economic support - PBL will take the 60 per
cent controlling seat.

PBL investors could be in for a scary ride in the effort to
bring Macau and its surrounding Chinese market into an unfamiliar
American-style era where gambling is mixed up with luxurious
hotels, lavish food, and star entertainment.

Ho reputedly made his first pile out of smuggling and trading
when Macau was a neutral enclave in Japanese-occupied Southern
China. His casinos have been persistently linked with parasitic
activity by Chinese criminal "triad" gangs, who offer loan-sharking
and prostitution services in the corridors and lobbies of Ho's
Lisboa and other casinos.

More recently a feud with sister Winnie Ho, 81, has brought out
allegations that could bring Ho into serious conflict with Beijing.
Hong Kong police are investigating information that Ho's casinos
operate as a giant money-laundering bank for mainland Chinese to
get billions of dollars out of the country into convertible
currency.

In an equivalent to the Middle-East's ancient "havala" trade,
informal banks in the neighbouring Chinese city of Zhuhai accept
funds in Chinese yuan from "punters" about to cross the land
border. The customers can then draw the Hong Kong dollar equivalent
in house cheques from Ho's Sociedade de Jogos de Macao.

Although this was hotly denied by Ho through a spokesman, a
reporter from Hong Kong's Far Eastern Economic Review tested the
system in June. A transfer of $US12,900 in yuan resulted a few
hours later in an SJDM cheque drawn on a European bank being handed
over on presentation of an agreed ID card.